Professional development for academic engagement: Primary school EFL teachers’ perceptions and predictors

Abstract

This study assessed primary school English language teachers' perceptions and predictors of Professional development for academic engagement. To achieve this, the study employed a descriptive survey design that uses a mixed-methods approachs. This is useful to blend both quantitative and qualitative data collection instruments. Accordingly, the study used questionnaire and interview to collect enough data at a time. Regarding the data analysis and results, it used concurrent-convergent strategies within which the data interpretation was made under each theme and then the discussion was made convergently. The results thus indicated that English language teachers' perceptions was depended on cognitive knowledge compared to social, emotional, and personal knowledge domains. Furthermore, the teachers' perceptions was significantly predicted by three most important predictors including the age, the salary paid, and the marital status of the teachers. Accordingly, the findings are useful to impact primary school English teachers' perceptions for effective professional development for academic engagement. Moreover, the educational authoraties including MoE can use these findings to design, train, coach and monitor English langauge teachers’ perceptions for professional developemenet for academic engagement which incoreporates professional learning, self-directed and autonomous learning. Finally, these findings can be used as a body of knowledge and corner stone for scholars and prosepective researchers.